Kilsin said:Haha, I will randomly use topical subjects every couple of months to put us out into the spotlight a bit more by giving our community a platform to voice their opinion, we have been very clear with our plans and our feeling and actions on cash shops have hopefully spoken volumes to our community when we removed our own store that was making nice revenue.
You will see me do this every now and then - carefully word a topical/controversial topic if our company/game leans safely on the good side of the conversation to help with reach, views, exposure etc. since I don't use click bait on your guys or have much in the way to show off due to NDA's and company policies while we are so deep in PA testing and game development, but don't read too much into it, it is just to help promote the game, get people talking about us and also giving our community that we cherrish so much a platform to show their support, voice their opinion and reaffirm our companies position publically on a bigger scale. :)
Kilsin, can we get back to the screenshot thing you were doing for us? That was much appreciated, and I thought it was getting paused until the new lighting system got implemented, which was long ago, and then was going to be started back up.
Would be nice to see Thronefast and other places as they grow.
My opinion on this generally depends on the type of game. That being said - with the type of experience that Pantheon promises - I'm happy to purchase the game and pay a monthly sub provided it supports on going development. Hopefully VR continues to make smart dvelopment choices grounded in systemic design - thinking of their product as more of a service and less of a linear content furnace. Thanks for asking Kilsin! :)
Fine: Season Passes, Subscriptions, Buy to play, pay to play, Expansions
NO!: Micro-transaction, cash shops, potion shops, Early Access, DLC etc.
Its ok for me to buy a game, pay a monthly fee to play and if there is a Expansion who earns the Name, its all ok for me to pay for.
I really hate stuff like, new Class/Race for money, Potions for more xp, runspeed, tradeskillskills, lockboxes or whatever.
Hi all (inc Dear Mr Kilsin ; )
Buy game , pay subscription and buy expansions like most of us whant to have it.
AND
For PRF to keep the original ide of a comunity driven game , no pre start of any kind the one's of us with higher pledge's allready get some stuff and that's enough. The hole ide is to evolve in unison , togheter and the only real life comodity that we should have is game time and nothing else. Make player's do the cosmetic gear and we buy them ingame, how to regulate in game economi is hard, but the ussuall funfare should work.
Edit
OMG i forgot RL stuff like T-SHIRT'S this is very importent as that exlusive pice of gear (glares at Baz ) is very hard to get from sweden so we need and i demand a RL Gear shop in the hopefully near future ;)
One thing I'd like to add to the discussion...
At $15.00 per month I am more likely to unsubscribe during periods of time when I'm not actively playing.
If there was an option to pay for a year or more at once for around $100/yr I would be more likely to stay subscribed for longer periods without interuption.
Buying the latest expansion should always include all previous content. This prevents people from buying a new copy and feeling ripped off by not being able to access the whole game.
I also like the idea of "krono"... 3rd party sales are going to happen if you like it or not on sites like playerauctions, something along the lines of a krono at least puts a chunk of this revenue back into VR's pockets. /flameshield on
Thanks for the discussion,
Kiz~
Angrykiz said:I also like the idea of "krono"... 3rd party sales are going to happen if you like it or not on sites like playerauctions, something along the lines of a krono at least puts a chunk of this revenue back into VR's pockets. /flameshield on
That's exactly the logic that got the MMORPGs into the broken state they are in right now. That's a slippery slope that ends in cash stores, pay to win and people leaving game communities.
Rather than embrace RMT, games need to be designed to minimize their impact. Can you stop someone from selling their character? Probably not, but the days of having some noob running around on an E-Bay'd level 50 enchanter were a lot better than the PTW alternative.
Depends on the business model...
Monthly Fee:
Purchase game
Monthly / yearly subscription fee
Expansions (I would buy them; however, prefer if the expansion price was already part of the monthly fee. No need to lock content from people when the game is built around community).
F2P:
Cash shop (what items to put into the cash shop would be highly debatable)
Monthly subscription to get benefits (unlimited chat channel access, more bank space, full access to Auction House/Broker, etc)
Kilsin said:Season Passes, DLC's, Subscriptions, Free to Play, Buy to Play, Pay to Play, Expansions, Early Access, Micro-transactions, Cash Shops - where do you draw the line in all of this and what is your preferred method to pay for an MMORPG? #PRF #MMORPG #MMO #communitymatters
have no idea what "Season Passes" means.
"early access" is a tricky question, with database wipe or without database wipe? without database wipe: is it three days? week? can be OK,
if its a whole month or even longer, then it is unfair.
now, regarding monetization of the game:
if the game is "Free to Play", then of course the only way to make money is microtransactions in the cash shop. but free to play games are very very bad for the community.
if the game is "buy to play", then payed expansions and DLCs are OK. cash shop and microtransactions are frowned upon but tolerated if it is not "pay to win" (cosmetics and account upgrades are ok).
if the game has subscription, then all microtransactions are bad, its just pure greediness.
as a personal preferance , I would like to have free demo (first 10 levels / or the newbie maps with limited abilities like no whispering and trading etc) and then monthly payment for the full experience, without buying the actual game.
because then it will be easier for me to advocate this game to many friends, ("it doesnt cost anything, try it and see if you like it, what do you have to lose?")
expansions are OK to buy. because you are already familiar with the game and know if you like it or not.
Not only do I only support this model:
a) Buy the game
b) subscribe to the game
c) purchase expansions that provide significant new content.
But I would gladly pay $20 a month for the sub. I want the development team to have the money to keep the game going, add great new content over time and make money. Don't waste that money and man hours on cash shops, services, dinky DLC, etc.
Cash shops are fine as long as you can't buy stuff that helps you in the game (like actual damage dealing weapons and armor), but instead has cosmetic stuff, skins, and the likes (such as FFXIV's cash shop). That being said, the cash shop can't have a monopoly over cosmetic stuff. You should be able to get a wide variety of cool looking stuff without paying for it too, you just have the option of paying for some other ones if you want. Also there shouldn't be a way of turning cash shop items into in game currency, although I am slightly more lenient on that. Basically don't have anything that is even mildly Pay to Win.
I don't like when a subscription based game has paid expansions too, I've quit other MMO's due to them doing stuff like that. Like if it were ~$25-35 expansions and the expansions had a lot of new content, then I would probably be willing to pay it, but usually they end up being $50-60 and that combined with an initial payment, plus $15 a month, is way too much.
I've never seen DLC or season passes in an MMO before, but that doesn't seem like something that should be a thing. Keep that stuff in the FPS genre.
Free to Play games end up either having a lower quality control, or are P2W. So whether it be Buy to Pay (like Guild Wars 2), or Pay to Play (like FFXIV), I think paying in some form is better.
You have Pay to Play and Subscriptions as two different things on the initial post, but aren't those two the same thing? I have been treating them as the same when using those terms so far.
I don't know what Micro-transactions are in an MMO, I thought those are just things on phone apps. In any case they sound unpleasant, and games that have those that I know about are typically just cash grabs.
Summary: the big spot where I draw the line is abusive cash shops that are Pay to Win or way overpriced (like $35 for an armor skin *you know who you are*). If it is a game I enjoy enough I will pay for a subscription, otherwise I often end up dropping out and going back to a one time initial payment + pay for later expansions MMO. For reference, I would say FFXIV has the ideal model for a cash shop (or at least did as of about a year ago, I stopped playing around that time).
Edit: Forgot to cover early access. No. Alpha/Beta testing should be the limit of people playing before the game actually launches for everyone.
1) Pay to play
2) buy the game
3) pay for expansion
4) DLC(not to pay for though)
Draws line _________________
I liked how WoW did their first expansion where they released end game content slowly overtime. This prolonged classic for a long time. I hope they do this and see no problems in doing this. I want to extend the longetivity of a game and this is probably the best model that did it.
Oracion said:I don't know what Micro-transactions are in an MMO, I thought those are just things on phone apps. In any case they sound unpleasant, and games that have those that I know about are typically just cash grabs.
LoTRO infamously introduced micro-transactions to Middle Earth and destroyed the game in my opinion. "Need a key to open that locked box? Click here to instantly purchase one from the LOTRO Store". "So sorry you died again today, but you've exceeded your resurrection quota for the day. Click here to purchase a rez from the LOTRO Store".
* DLC: No. Absolutely not. (Any "DLC" needs to be rolled into expansions)
* Season Pass: Indifferent.
* Subscriptions / Pay to Play: Yes, with price breaks for 3 month block, 6 month block, 1 year block, etc.
* Free to Play / Trial: Yes, but with limitations. (level 10 cap, limited currency capacity, limited character slots, no cross-server communication, etc)
* Buy to Play: Base Game / Expansions, Yes.
* Expansions: Yes, as long as each expansion includes the base game, and all expansions below it. (ie: How EQ does it)
* Early Access: Indifferent.
* Micro-transactions / Cash Shop: No to potions, large slot bags, gear, weapons, mounts, or anything else tangible in the game world.
* Micro-transactions / Cash Shop: Yes to the strict exception of cosmetic items (non-combat pets, visible gear appearance changers, etc).
* Payment Types: Credit/Debit cards, Game Cards, or Paypal. (NO Kronos!)
Celandor said:Oracion said:I don't know what Micro-transactions are in an MMO, I thought those are just things on phone apps. In any case they sound unpleasant, and games that have those that I know about are typically just cash grabs.
LoTRO infamously introduced micro-transactions to Middle Earth and destroyed the game in my opinion. "Need a key to open that locked box? Click here to instantly purchase one from the LOTRO Store". "So sorry you died again today, but you've exceeded your resurrection quota for the day. Click here to purchase a rez from the LOTRO Store".
I worked at Turbine during the time they introduced micro-transactions for LOTRO and then DDO. I was asked my opinion and told them it was a horrible idea. Obviously they didn't listen to myself and others with this viewpoint.
The devil's in the details, but for a game like this I prefer: Initial purchase + subscription.
Where, the initial purchase is sized to cover costs associated with publishing and the subscription is sized to cover fixed costs and ongoing content development.
The old days where hosting was a huge percentage of fixed costs and expansions are shipped on CDs are gone, so I'm not sure there's still merit in the Sub + Expansions model.
Shai said:The devil's in the details, but for a game like this I prefer: Initial purchase + subscription.
Where, the initial purchase is sized to cover costs associated with publishing and the subscription is sized to cover fixed costs and ongoing content development.
The old days where hosting was a huge percentage of fixed costs are gone, so I'm not sure there's still merit in the Sub + Expansions model.
Yeah, my husband and I are right there with ya on this. We would rather pay for the game and the monthly to ensure the game stays well funded so the developers can stay afloat and still provide new wonderful content and keep things running smoothly.
FTP games bring on gold farmers, inflated Auction house prices, lootboxes and pay to win Gimmicks. I'm tired of that broken system. If you find a game like Pantheon who is trying to do it right.. I think they should be compensated for that integrity.
I think I'm with most of the people here...
I think you should have to purchase the game to play, and it should cost 50-60 dollars. I've spent that much for some pretty lame console games that my kids beat in like 20-30 hours. This is a game some of us will play for thousands of hours. A 50 or 60 dollar (or $100 even!) buy in cost for something you'll spend thousands of hours doing is a pretty good deal.
I think a monthly subscription should be required to play. You get 30 days when you buy the game, then its $20 a month. People use patreon and other services to pay twitch streamers 5 or 10 dollars a month, same with youtubers and podcasters etc. $20 a month is reasonable, and it pushes out the 12 year olds.
Expansions should cost 50-60 bucks each. I'm not a huge fan of "collector's editions" unless they come with Real Life objects, like cloth maps, coins, action figures, t-shirts etc. I liked how EQ used to do it, where not every expansion was an "all-in-one" expansion, but some were.
MERCHANDISE - I think I saw someone else mention this, but have an online Pantheon ROTF store. That sells T-shirts, coffee mugs, frameable maps, action figures, trading cards, pajamas, hats, pins etc. I would buy tons of it. I remember going to an EQ fan fest back in like 2003 and was so excited to buy a hat and t-shirt and an iksar action figure. It gets money to the devs without hurting game play, and helps advertise the game.
A tutorial/trial people can try out to see if they will like the game would be fine to be free to play... for example, the newbie island in EQ2 or the "newer" tutorial from EQ1 where you're in the mines and have to do all these quests that teach you about game mechanics. I think EQ used to have one you could play offline, I used to mess with it when the servers were down and I was bored... but other than that, NO FREE TO PLAY. Everyone in the game should be contributing to the game. This isn't a theme park disneyland MMO for the kiddies, it's for more mature gamers, we should be able to come up with 20/month or 100/year to play... if it really would be an issue for some people maybe have a Pantheon go-fund-me sort of page where you could give a disabled veteran a monthly subscription etc.
Please don't do cosmetic armor and pets in a pay to play shop. I even hated the armor dyes from later on in EQ... I want to see what gear people are wearing. Appearance gear is fine in game to an extent, maybe have it so you can turn it on or off if you can see other players' actual gear or appearance gear. If appearance slots is going to be a thing, one thing I was happy to shell out lots of money for in Everquest 2 was the Wardrobe function. What that was if people didn't play it... they added this thing where you could permanently add a piece of gear to your "wardrobe" where you could select that item as an appearance item. So if you really liked a helmet you found, you could throw it in there and use it as an appearance item. The benefit was, you could have up to like 64 slots per item location, like shoulders, helm, chest, legs, hands, feet, etc. You got a certain number for free and you could buy additional slots. I maxed out several of the slots. I was able to clear out bag after bag of items from banks and alts I was saving because I liked the look but never carried it around because of inventory issues. I love having 64 different helms that I've gotten from quests and loot drops I can cycle through at my leisure.
I also spent a good amount of money on Legends of Norrath back in the day. I had fun playing it solo, never really played other people... a game like that that players could play against each other in taverns etc would be fun. WoW has a pretty popular card game. If they feel like making more money they could have a CCG at some point.
Please don't have renaming potions. If someone ruins their reputation, they shouldn't be able to reset it for $20. Make them reroll a character or try to repair their image.
Most seem to want the same thing.
1. Buy game
2. Pay monthly subscription
3. Pay for meaningful content packed expansions
4. No pay to win / pay to get ahead.